that is the national debt. it keeps rising. so the politicians are fighting about raising the debt limit. do you know what that is? do you understand the fight? lots of people don't. >> so you see the national debt clock over there? >> know what the national debt is. is. >> 121. >> that is how much it is but do you know what it is? >> the debt ceiling crisis? no. >> what is the next step in the debt battle. >> if people don't know, the bat st. louis all over television. people know the president. but do they know his opponent? if you are spending more money

than you are taking in you need to spend less of it. >> who is this buy? >> guys. >> looks like a politician to me. >> do you know who that is? >> yes, of course, the governor of my state. >> the gay actor on 30 rock. >> john boehner. >> right. but lots of people didn't know him. >> i don't know who that is. >> or anything about the debt problem. >> what is the debt limit? what are the politicians fighting about? >> i don't know what they are fighting about. >> okay. well, tonight, we'll explain it. and we'll solve it. i'll cut the debt. it's not that hard. the debt and the stossel solution. that's our show, tonight. >> and now, john stossel. >> the poor politicians. they just don't have enough of your money. so they need to borrow more.

put america deeper into debt. this year you taxpayers are so cheap, you are only giving them $2,200,000,000,000. look at that. that is not enough? they needed more? yes, says the president. if they don't get more money they may not be able to send out social security checks. pay the benefits our veterans deserve. really? $2 trillion isn't enough? i don't get it. with $2 trillion they can pay social security and medicare and the interest on the debt and still have hundreds of billions left over. 2 trillion is plenty. billions more than the entire government spends when president bush took office. what's the problem? the problem is that republicans and democrats under presidents bush and obama doubled spending. doubled it. this year the government plans to spend $3,800,000,000,000. look at that number. that is a reason we have a

growing debt. president obama says we need to raise taxes to cover that? i don't think so. it is the spending that is the problem. this chart shows how much different administrations have spent adjusted for inflation. spending rose during every administration and then exploded under presidents bush and obama. so because of those increases the president says we need to increase revenues. no way says grover norquist who heads americans for tax reform. some say the reason there isn't is debt deal on the table yet is because of you and your pledge. >> the reason there isn't a tax increase on the table is that 235 members of the house of representatives signed a pledge to their voters never to raise taxes and several senate members did. they came tooling and said we

are not going to raise taxes, end of conversation. >> you went to them and said hey, don't you want to sign this? what do you say? >> absolutely. we share it with them. often political activists and tea party activists share the ledge. if you going to run for office will you mitt in citing, not in a speech, not as an aside, with two witnesses, not that we don't trust anybody but we have two witnesses and it is dated and then we make many copies and show them to everybody. we want to make sure that if people take the pledge that voters know that people want to them to keep. >> i played clips at the bebeginning of the show people saying debt ceiling, what is that? the majority have some idea and some like this young woman were pretty well informed. >> what are they fighting about. >> the debt limit and the republicans want to not have any taxes because grover

norquist made them sign all this stuff and they can't look like idiots. >> randomly this young woman on the street you are the guy -- the republicans want no taxes. >> no tax increases. well, that is what she meant. but i think the message is republicans want no taxes. >> well, we ought to go with lower taxes to start with. work on pushing the envelope but start with not increasing the tax burden. step one, don't raise taxes. step two, bring taxes down but only if you take tax increases off the table do you even begin to have a conversation about spending restraint. there have been good proposals. the ryan plan dropped spending by $6 trillion. >> eventually nice step in the right direction. over ten years. the most recent plan is a $2.5 trillion spending reduction from obama's higher levels. but we wouldn't -- >> and none of these are real cuts, right, all cuts in the projected increase?

>> things are getting bad and getting bad worser, sooner, and we need to reduce the damage that is being inflicted. unless you say no to tax increases you don't needed to discuss spending. >> he kind of i think won against you in some way in that a lot of these things you call tax increases were kind of loopholes that went to private jetmakers. the oil depletion allowance. doesn't sound like a tax. sounds like a special break for a rich business. >> two reasons we want to eliminate reductions. simplify the code, take away the goo good yos, specifically the green. >> wind mill and solar. >> they call them alternative energy because they don't

create energy. >> you are fine with getting rid of all those things if it balance. >> as long as you reduce tax rates and it is not a hidden tax increase, yes. >> the talk about the constant increase in spending makes me think of a cocaine user who always needs more coke to get high. someone like this guy. >> america can learn a lot from a drug addict. even though this country is $14 trillion in debt washington raised the debt ceiling ten times in the last ten years. each time it is like a hit. another spending hit but you are the junkies. to borrow less you need to spend less. yeah, washington could learn a lot from a drug addict. >> that was an ad made by a group run by gretchen hamill. what is your group and what is it doing? >> we want to educate the american public on the crisis we are experiencing and all things about economics and what happens inside the beltway and try to put it in simple terms and simple ways that americans

can understand like a drug addict. >> are you one of the front running tax groups. >> no, we give them such a hard time. we are an organization full of all different political stripes and all bound together on making sure that we get this economy back on track and inform the american public about what is happening inside the beltway and when it comes to government spending and the economy. >> and doing some clever things. i see you are paying to put this message on buses in washington, d.c. can we put that up? bankrupting america.org. next stop, greece. >> that is from public notice our 501 c 4 that runs a campaign called bankrupting america. we want to show what is happening around the world so people can understand it. this is a very real problem that we are going through right now and want to try to do is in unconventional ways like sending valentines on capitol

hill the day the president released the budget on february 14 or through you bus ads in washington. >> raising the debt ceiling without cutting spending is our own greek tragedy. greek is a useful model because you can see the riots. most of this debate people can't see. so you have your ads. you have the ledge you can see at least, it is hard to explain this to people who have lies. >> you need to make it clear and the point of the pledge is to make it credible when a politician says i'm not going to raise your taxes. why would you believe them? they have been lying for 2,000 years. if they put it down in writing and hand it to you makes the commitment more believable and has slowed down their willingness to raise taxes. >> as milton friedman says tax

and spending all the same, this doubling under bush and obama really wasn't publicized much. what do you do about that? >> first, you don't raise taxes and then focus on spending and we need to both reform government and cut government. we need to ask what it is government should do and how to do it less and come be tently than we have been doing it. >> it qusing to be knock down dragout. i think of the ethanol subsidies. even the environmental movement which pushed them now says oops, wrong, they are not better for the environment but they can't get rid of them. >> all government overspending creates the constituency for its own perpetuation. you are feeding the monster that is going to keep demanding to be fed. weening people off that is difficult. >> it as mentality change. >> we have questions from my facebook page for you. one person calls you the high priest of the star of the beast church. but first, a democratic

congressman has an interesting proposal for reducing our debt. smoke 'em if you got 'em. he'll explain that, next.

politicians can't agree on what to could about the debt problem. most republicans now finally want to cut spending. democrats are more eager to

raise revenues which usually means taxes. as i said i'm with the spending cutters on this and later on the show i will cut the budget all the way to surplus. but for now let's consider the democrats' point of view, raising revenue is. one congressman has a proposal to do that without raising taxes and i kind of like his idea. he wants to legalize stuff, like marijuana. and online gambling. by legalizing those things you free them from the black market and that then brings in taxes. congressman is jarrod poulis. let's go through your plan. also grab an amnesty for illegal immigrants so that they will pay taxes. >> first of all, john, i have to see the second part of your show. sounds like you solved it. i have to see what your solutions are. >> we will. >> with regard to immigration, again, there is a large illegal work force in this country, 10, 15 million. they pay some taxes, not all. sales tax.

maybe income tax. get right with the law and create a process for a provisionary work permit and responsible for back taxes and going forward. with regard to marijuana, not going to say it is legal everywhere. federal approach should be if it is legal in the state tax it at any other business instead of at 100% tax which is what it is, the government will confiscate it if they find it, treat it like any other business and enlarge the tax base. >> and the illegal has to say i will pay taxes and i'm legal? >> there would be a fine associated with the two. i think in our projection we estimated it would be a $2,000 or $3,000 fine in addition to the back taxs. >> you also proprose we give some kind of amnesty or forgiveness to tax cheaters? >> this is something you can do once a generation. people evading taxes and not paying taxes. we are saying come forward.

you are responsible for your taxes but there will be no criminal penalties against you. you can't do this every five or ten years. but can you do it once every 50 years. absolutely. the state of colorado did it recently. the state of california. should be a huge revenue razor for the federal government and enlarge the tax base going forward by saying we will forego criminal penalties if you get right with the law and pay your taxes. let's go on to legalizing online gambling. this blows me away that republicans banned it. it goes on everywhere and now people in the cayman islands are making a lot of money, not in the united states. >> this is in my opinion the biggest the no brainer. gambling is a click away for any one with a computer. people do it. americans do it every day but we force the businesses to domicile offshore. we force them to pay taxes to foreign governments.

the jobs and taxes would come here if we treated it like any other ordinary american business. >> and it always puzzles me that the states, that the politicians have said we don't want to encourage this, gambling hurts some people but they run lotteries which offer terrible odds. >> that is definitely an example of cognitive dissidents. the states run gambling rackets themselves. perhaps they don't want the competition to their gambling monopolies. >> i think they are just hypocriticisms. in the "wall street journal" you said these should be on the table along with the spending cuts. you did say along with spending cuts. so what would you cut? >> well, you will tell me in county second part of your program, john. >> that is what i would cut. what would you cut? >> in the reid proposal and

boehner proposal we are talking about trillions of dollars of cuts. i have a number of pieces that will contribute to that. a bill that would reduce the minting of unnecessary coin and some of these presidential dollar coins me don't make. many agree we should cut the military expenditures. there is a lot of area for cuts. probably agree and disagree with some of your recommendations but that is a give than we have a spending problem and we need to cut our government spending. >> i'm glad that you have specific cuts in mind and we look forward to hearing those at another time. thank you, congressman polis. my next guest says cutting spending isn't just the smart thing to do, it is the moral thing to do. that's next.

look at that number. that is what congress says it needs to spend this year. give me a break. $3,800,000,000,000, twice what they spent just ten years ago? president obama talked about taking a scalpel to the budget but we need something like this, something bigger. with all that overspending maybe this would -- no, we need something even bigger than

that. we need to make huge cuts and later in the show i will cut the deficit down to surplus. but when i or others talk about making significant cuts i hear scathing criticism like this. >> don't watch stossel. he is nothing but hacked. a corporate shell. he wants to throw granny over a cliff. this ad has been approved by the mainstream media. >> okay, my producer made that as a joke but the point is serious. any one who proposes cuts to the budget is branded cruel. one person says cuting that down isn't just economically smart, it is the moral thing to do. arthur brooks of the american enterprise institution says that. whew do you mean it is the moral to do? >> hi john. people say it is only fair for rich people to pay more and it

is fair to take from people who have more in society and unfair to cut programs especially if they would affect anybody who has less than average incomes. >> and that resonates with people that there is a lot of money and redistribution is the moral thing to do. >> sure. this truth that sounds really good until you start thinking about what most americans think fair is. redistribution is not the definition of fairness to most americans. most americans think that fairness has to do with keeping what you earn. doesn't mean you to penalize poor people or take money away from those that don't have enough but it is not fair to take more away from people just because we can especially when we are robbing our future because we have a spending disorder in our government. it is immoral to be stealing from future generations and taking away their pursuit of

happiness because we can do that. the government is treating americans like atm machines. most would say that is not fair and fair since a really moral thing. >> you said in your op ed in the "wall street journal" when you withdraw money from sit agains against their will you make them less free. what do you mean? >> yeah, sure. when concern the state needs to function. we need to have taxes to pay for government. we all know that. the question is how much do we need for how much government that we actually want as a society? the government goes way beyond what we need to fix certain market failures. way beyond to creating a minimum basic safety net for the economically vulnerable. it has all kinds of middle class welfare. people think that sounds kind of like a good idea. why not, a few bucks here or there. that is really what hiyack was

talking about. pretty soon we have a different kind of society and different sort of economy. something different than less free. you work hard and they take it away. >> changes the culture when people become dependent. i can see how people say it is immoral to just take it from people but people also say what is moral about taking the money that government gives to poor people and limiting that? a religious advisor for obama says the didn't debate is a clash between two moral visions. those that believe in the common good, that is him, i believend those that in individual good is the only way. the bible says we should wary of the rich and defend the poor. >> a clash ever moral visions. one side says it is moral for the government to be bigger and taking more away because it can and redistributing wealth

between people. the other moral vision says that people should be able to be free. i like the founders of the united states and their concept of what a moral society was. if you go back to 1776, the declaration of independence was going to say we have unalienable rights like life, liberty and the possession of property. they put in the pursuit of happy onshore understanding that possession of property is too materialistic. the left which talks about rebukes basically says if you want to stop cultural problems and solve problems of poverty you do it with a welfare check and call it social justice. it has nothing to do with individual opportunity. >> i love the phrase social justice that they argue. if i resist does that mean i'm for social injustice? very hard to fight that. but i still don't quite get what you are -- how i answer

these people when they say you can't pursue happiness if you are horribly poor, if you are sick and we need government to step in to help those people. we have to do more because there are still poor people and that is the moral thing to do. >> look, economists through the ages including adam smith knew that we need a safety need. we need a basic safety net for the government. anybody who says get rid of all government programs and cut it down to zero. they are not paying attention to what we need. it goes beyond help for the vulnerable. i don't want middle class welfare. i don't want forced sharing. morality comes when people voluntarily above the level of basic poverty and help each other voluntarily. and voluntariry charity doesn't happen when the government is

redistributing too much income. the united states is the most charitable country on the face of the earth. we believe that individuals need to make the choices. we have to get away from the cia operative cotmy and idea -- dichotomy. if you believe the loyal thing is rewarding entrepreneurship. if you believe it is unfair for the state to force people to may more than the state needs to function. no, i want to help the poor with a basic standard of living and create an opportunity society where everybody can rise. that is why your ancestors came here, for that, not for forced income redistribution. >> i would like to add the pure libertarian point if you remove the government safety net it is okay with me because i think a private safety net would come in and fill that and do it much better. next, what if we do keep piling on the debt and can't pay our

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a press conference is not a plan. >> it so i hope republicans will wake up. >> the president wants us to help pay for his spending binge. >> many republicans in the house refuse to consider this kind of bald approach. balanced approach. >> i think the president should apologize. >> the debt ceiling is being held hostage. >> what if they don't work it out and congress runs out of money to spend. in they promised to pay social security and medicare and help the poor. will they just stop? >> , the federal government can just print more money. when they do each bill decreases in value.

eventually this becomes worthless. equivalent to government being unable to pay your social security check. what would that look like? it has already happened in pritchard, alabama. this woman's husband worked for the city for 32 years. he held up his end of the bargain but the city didn't. they didn't send him a pension check for more than a year. the city counter insurgency st. louis says we don't have the money. in 2003 an accountant warned the town you will run out of money by 2009. the politicians then did nothing as they admit today. >> never nothing changed. never never was accomplish. >> right on schedule in 2009 the town went broke so politicians declared bankruptcy and just stopped sending pension checks to retired city employees. more than 00 of them. >> we want our money. >> they didn't do anything that that they were supposed to do.

they didn't pay us like they were supposed to. >> alfred arnold retired after working 35 years for the city. he hoped to relax and travel. when the pension checks stopped coming he had to get another job. now, at age 66 he is a security guard at the local mall. and alfred arnold joins us along with steve malenga who studies governments and their budgets. had to get a job as a security guard. >> oh, yes. >> thought you were going to get your pension and it wasn't there. >> not there. have to go to work 40 hours a week. just starting all over again, you know. >> i know another person, glen williams, 77 years old. was lucky to get a job as a school teach. yes. >> it is not like the town has no money. they are paying the mayor almost $100,000. >> exactly. >> they have a housing authority with 40 government

workers. they knew this was going to happen. had you novembe known this waso happen you would have saved money and been prepared for this and made your own plans? >> i would have left the city long ago. >> you study cities. is going to happen more places? >> happened to a few places and a lot of places are approaching this. whether they get bailed out by the states or not is an open question. vallejo, california, filed for bankruptcy. central falls, rhode island, asking for 50% cut in pensions for retirees. we are seeing this, absolutely. >> and cities and states unlike the federal government can't print money. >> that is for sure and can't run deficits technically. >> and in a way it is a good discipline except it is people like you who suffer. >> here is the problem is that the pension funds and the way they are structured is just another form of borrowing. just like debt. even though technically cities and states can't run deficits

they are. they choose to run them in their pension funds. politicians make promises and don't fund them. if would be like me saying i'm going to fund my ira by putting money on my credit card. now, i funded my i ram but owe money on the credit card. it is not really funding the ira. it is another form of debt, hidden debt and that is what they are relying on. >> they have the city council and they have an accounting firm that says you will go broke in x years and they just do nothing? they are supposed to be the responsible party. >> what happens is when you get to the point where someone says you are going to go broke in five years in the pension fund the cost of getting out is so high that people ignore it. you have a state like, new jersey, that hasn't made a pension, ten years they barely made a payment into the pension system. the unfunded liabilities got bigger and bigger. illinois doesn't make payments into the pensions. they borrow the money.

the joke that i just made that is what they do and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger the problem. >> they know it will blow up but they will be out of office and they just stick their heads in the sand. >> the accounting is way too complex. a little bit like wall street accounting. what happens is they basically ride it all. all of the people who made all of the states like, new jersey, and new york and connecticut who made pension promises in the 1990s, big promises that they can't pay for, most of those politicians are gone now and the current politicians are stuck with the problems. it is a dysfunctional system because you make promises now that have to be paid for 10, 20 years in advance. >> what is going happen. some cases they are saying new employees we are going to pay you less but in order to stiff the older employees this happened to you they have to declare bankruptcy and get reorganized bay judge who says okay, you can -- doesn't seem fair that your city has a golf

course they are losing money on. they didn't get rid of that. >> should sell that. >> they should sell that. >> and now finally paying a third of what they promise. >> exactly. >> are you happy with that? >> no, i'm not. not at all. >> and part of the problem is what you have to do is do this in a way that fixes the system now by reduces the costs now for those people who are currently work something that you can continue to pay your retirees otherwise you still have the situation where you say we will save the system for the people working now but at the expense of the retirees. >> is that happening? are they doing it? >> some people are saying look employees have to pay more. other states are saying let's raise taxes to put more money in the system and cities are taking different approaches. the city of atlanta the most radical thing. instituted a kind of 401(k) defined contribution plan which basically ends the long-term liability for the city.

put the money in right now for the employees and make sure everybody know hass is going in and make it transparent. cities are doing different things. >> good news. >> some responsible. not all responsible. some, again, it is just il litchfield sory fixes in some cases. you can't make a generalization. >> just a microcostumes many of what is going on at the federal level with all of the noise over the debt ceiling but in every town something similar. and look at new york city, my town, you say that new york city the pension costs ten years ago were $1.5 billion and it is $8.5 billion this year. >> absolutely. in just ten years, 6% of the city's budget to 16% of the city's budget. that is happening around the country. basically if you think about that, something else has to be cut in order just to account for that. and new york city is a good case of a really dysfunctional situation because it is the

state legislature that dictates what the city must pay but the city has to pay it and that is -- and you find this in states around the country. that is a really bad system because basically it is mandates coming down that the people at the state level don't have to pay. >> it is awful for people like you, alfred. and yet you seem good natured about it. aren't you ticked off? >> oh, bay cheated. >> certainly i'm ticked off about it. as a matter of fact, what this gentleman was just saying is basically true in the city of pritchard. now, they are starting a new program after they get rid of our pension with like a 401 kaye and the employees are going to invest money into but the city is not. >> at least it will pay off if it is the employees own money. thank you. coming up, my solution to our horrible deficit. are you ready for some cutting? i'm going to cut! ♪

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we are back with your questions for grover norquist the creator of the taxpayer protection pledge and steve from the manhattan institute a specialist on governments and how they squander tax money.

first from my facebook page. eric asks what is so who are inmates about default. why shouldn't government credit tores who choose to invest in the fleecing of their fellow man pay the consequences? >> creates problems down the road because if pension funds are investing in treasury certificates. next time around they might not be so willing. so the government that is going to over time reduce its debt but has to rely on debt for some time before it does that. if you stiff creditors you do risk the fact that they won't come to the well any more. >> it is more than risk, right? i mean they won't come to the well at the same price and they might not come at all. >> it will get more expensive. but the real risk is that some people will step out of the market almost completely and then you can't finance all this debt that unfortunately we have. >> stephanie clark mons asks. i understand the debt crisis has been raised before many

times? why does is seem to be coming to a head? what is different? >> in past times they had restraint on spending or reform they wanted to attach to it so it is not unreasonable to ask for reform. but the size of this debt ceiling increase is larger than we have seen before. spending increase has been so dramatic over the last three years. is what is shocking to the system. >> and used to be that congress had to approve every treasury bond and they said now we are borrowing so much and we can't do that and they started setting these limits. pundits and politicians say it will be a disaster if congress doesn't vote to raise the debt ceiling. here is the president. >> we would risk sparking a deep economic crisis. >> why is he so concern? people forget that is similar crisis happened in 1995. remember that one? president clinton and the republican congress couldn't agree on a budget so government

shut down twice. the second time for three weeks. almost a million government workers were told don't come to work. did the economy grind to a halt? no. did you even notice that the labor department or commerce department wasn't busy doing the mostly useless stuff they do? i doubt it. this chart shows what happened to the stock market. the shutdowns are the shaded part. during the first the stock market went up. during the second is dropped but then recovered. and today despite all of the screaming we must raise the ceiling or no one will loan us money, they sure are loaning us money now. this week, people bought ten year pressr treasury bonds ande government only had to promise to pay them back ten years plus a meesly 3.3% interest. people trust they will get paid back i guess. in 1981 they had to pay 15% interest. are the investors all stupid?

it's possible but i doubt it. i think they are smarter the politicians. did they know that the $2 trillion in tax dollars are coming in. they will probably get paid or maybe get a small hair cut. not raising the debt ceiling is no crisis. i worry more about what will happen if congress keeps spending the way it has. grover, you said it is important for them to raise the ceiling. >> hand over to the president complete control of what bills to pay and not bay pay, i'm not sure i like that much power in thing executive branch. keep the president on a short leash and do it for five or six months and then look at the spending cuts. >> the president gets to decide what bills to pay or not pay. he will decide. something tells me acorn still go aheads mate and all of the

things that you or i would look at as the completelyish relevant government they would all get paid first. >> but he would only have two thirds of the money so he would have to cut. >> that's true. and he would blame everybody but himself. >> got you. another question from facebook. scott asks why is no one producing a plan that has any immediate cuts. we need to cut spending next year, not over ten years. >> well, one of the reasons is because there is a constituency for every one of these programs. and essentially you are going to upset someone if you cut. thatth is one of the problems with spending that as you spend and buy into programs you create constituencies and they will scream and nobody wants to take that political heat and that is why it becomes so hard to cut government. >> in today's paper there is the story about the essential air service. these little airports where wealthier people like me vacation and you get cheap flights to keep the airport open.

the government pays more for the ticket than you do and they can't get rid of it even in this time of so called cry cities. >> they are not trying to cut spending because the president is still trying to talk us into tax increases to continue the spending. once we have convinced them we are not raising taxes then we focus on spending and only then do we focus on spending. and we have to have bifocal vision. focus on the stupid stuff now but the big savings come from making small changes now that over the next 30 years make significant savings in the entitlement programs. >> and you always have been an optimist about this stuff while i'm a pessimist. >> i'm a long-term are optimist. >> steve you get the last word. >> i guess i would say that i'm a long-term optimist because i believe that one of the ways out of this is by restraining spending to get the economy going again because eventually we will grow our way out of this and not spend our way out of this. >> i hope you are right. >> we hope. >> we certainly need growth to

do it. thank you steve and grover. >> thank you. coming up, i'll show you that i can cut the budget so there is no debt crisis. it can be done. it was created with the power of verizon 4g lte. introducing the lightning-fast, 10-inch samsung galaxy tab. stay up to date, entertain yourself, and enrich your knowledge like you've never imagined. only at verizon. built so you can rule the air.

we taxpayers must be suckers. we gave the politicians more than $2 trillion and then they say that is not enough. they have to spend 3.8 trillion? give me a break. the end of the clinton administration america spent half that. bush and obama doubled our spending. they should apologize instead of asking for more debt. that 3.8 trillion will get worse as my baby boom generation retires because the politicians promised to pay our healthcare and social security and we keep living longer. it is just unsustainable. the only hope for the country is for us not to borrow more but to cut spend and grow our way out of debt. the government does all sorts of things it doesn't need to

do. ky balance the budget. i will do it right now. you just need the right tools. get rid of all ear marks. privatize air traffic control. canada there d. that and private works better. we should sell amtrak. the government can't run trains efficiently. open anwar to drilling. so far i have saved about $40 billion. oops. barely dents the deficit. we have to cut much more. so i will do that. we can do that. let's eliminate whole departments starting with the education department. they haven't improved education. children gain nothing when your money is shipped from your state to washington. laundered by bureaucrats and shipped back with strings attached. kill the agriculture subsidies which mostly go to reach farmers. keep welfare and food stamps but dump most of the department of agriculture.

kill the commerce department. the labor department. most of the energy department. privatize nasa and the war on drugs. do that and ought all these other things and we have cut $1,700,000,000,000 but that is still not enough. to balance the budget we have to cut the so called untouchable parts like social security. the plan to raise the retirement raise and index benefits to actual in lakes would save $73 billion. it is a start. but then let's go further. heritage would means test the program and i agree we richer people who are not going to expect to live until we are 80 we shouldn't get more money out of social security than we put in and we should do the same for medicare. and take the chainsaw to government handouts injuries the department of health and human services runs 400 separate subsidy programs. it's crazy. now, defense. we currently spend more than 7

h hundred billion dollars. we must support our troops but we can do that and save money if the administration shooting to its most important role.shrx protecting us and our borders. we station 50,000 soldiers in germany and 9,000 in britain troops all over the world. let those countries pay for their own defense. we would still spend more than twice what china spends or the next largest military. so, we are now $235 billion in surplus. hoorah. and i left out some of the details tonight. our full cuts are available for you you to check out at john stossel .com. now, some of these cuts might seem painful but what really is pain in this case in the mid 1990s canada made sim allbeit cuts and prospered. they now have less unmany ployment and a stronger dollar than we do.

pain brings gain for people. and actually, america does not even need to cut to the point of surplus if we just reduce the deficit and slow the growth of government to maybe 1% a year we can grow our way out of this mess. but we have to cut now or we will end up like greece. so let's cut now instead of increasing debt ceiling so we can borrow more. that is my solution to the budget mess. thank you you for watching. captioned by closed captioning services, inc. [ male announcer ] to the 5:00 a.m. scholar. the two trains and a bus rider. the "i'll sleep when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you. and we've been honored to walk with you to help you get where you want to be

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